A recent installation at KPMG’s offices in London’s Canary Wharf UK, saw Shure’s Microflex Advance MXA910 Ceiling Array Microphone – part of a new Voice Lift system – used in a new U-Collaborate space.

The U-Collaborate space is a bespoke, innovative environment that combines problem solving expertise and powerful SME insights to help client’s overcome complex challenges, such as strategy, transformation delivery or a new operating model, with the ability to host live events of up to 120 participants all working rapidly in parallel to co-create effective solutions, delivering months of work in just one to three days.

‘A lot of the work we do is actually conversation,’ says KPMG Collaboration Solutions Engineer, Paul Guy. ‘It’s people talking to people, from different parts of the business, understanding their different vantage points. We need to make communication very easy.’

When it came to choosing a system to allow easy, flexible communication within one of the KPMG meeting rooms – which is a very large event space capable of seating 80 people at a time – the company approached A/V specialist proAV to find a single solution that could cope with the complex issues surrounding the installation, with voice lift also a requirement of the project.

‘KPMG contacted me to come up with potential solutions which would alleviate the requirement for handheld and lapel microphones during a normal session,’ explains proAV Client Direct Sales Manager, Jon Maguire. ‘The quality of the MXA910 in my mind is superior to anything out there on the market.’

A voice lift system amplifies the voices of people in one part of the room just enough so that people in other parts of the room can hear them clearly. Unlike conventional sound reinforcement systems, Voice Lift boosts the frequency range most critical for intelligibility, restoring the natural speech level for far-end participants within a room by increasing speech level 3-6dB. The effect is so subtle that participants notice the difference as soon as the system is turned off.

‘There’s a whole group of people that actually view a microphone with horror,’ Guy adds. ‘The great thing about using the MXA910s with Voice Lift is they take all of that away. You no longer have to give out microphones to people; all they have to do is talk and they’re picked up immediately. It’s made collaboration much easier.’

The flexibility of MXA910 means the system is also more than adequate for use in video conferencing situations, especially when bringing in a remote participant, with the MXA910s used alongside the Voice Lift system. ‘That discussion is as though the person was in the room,’ Guy commetns.

Shure’s MXA910 features Steerable Coverage and built-in automatic mixing, helping capture every voice with accuracy anywhere in the room. The automatic positioning feature in Shure’s Designer System Configuration Software makes it easy to adjust lobe coverage, so businesses like KMPG get the most out of the meeting conversation. Additionally, the MXA910 can easily connect to the ecosystem of Shure and third-party networked audio devices, includingDante and AES67.

Shure Network Audio Encryption can be enabled when used with the IntelliMix P300 Audio Conferencing Processor or Shure Audio Network Interfaces, which utilize AES-256 technology to protect confidential content.